TALENT To 14 November.

London.

TALENT
by Victoria Wood.

Menier Chocolate Factory 53 Southwark Street SE1 1RU To 14 November 2009.
Tue-Sat 8pm Mat Sat & Sun 3.30pm.
Runs 1hr 35min No interval.

TICKETS: 020 7907 7060 (£2 transaction fee).
www.menierchocolatefactory.com (no booking fee).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 25 September.

A Talent to amuse, to a degree.
Set in Manchester, premiered in Sheffield, Victoria Wood’s 1978 comedy with songs has an industrial revival, at the Old Laundry Theatre in Bowness-on-Windermere and now Southwark’s old Menier Chocolate Factory. The Old Laundry’s Roger Glossop was involved designing Talent’s premiere in the Crucible Studio, and her old mate Julie Walters played hopeful young singer Julie on the tele.

So when it emerges the play’s talent contest is rigged, with the owner managing the act that’s destined to win, the idea of it being not just what you can do but who you can do it for seems true-to-life. Not that Wood needs to lean on anything other than her own talent. If not her own Talent.

This revival has a new fantasy opening and extra songs, but what sticks out is the young Wood’s way with the logical absurdities of everyday language. Mixed with the dilapidated backstage setting, it places her between Alan Bennett and John Godber.

Seventies absurdities in dress and performance-style are duly mocked in the author’s revival, while the lecherous old compère using his supposed connections to get sex, the ex-boyfriend whose skills as an accompanist are non-existent – yet who’s employed to play in what’s supposedly (except backstage) a swanky night-spot - or the cheerfully amateur comedy magician are stock characters well-enough played.

There’s doubtless some autobiographical angst shared between elegantly slimline Julie, looking to escape secretaryhood by song, and her plumply stolid friend Maureen. Suzie Toase gives Maureen a stoic repose. Sipping the drinks others leave, going to find the Ladies’ (though the only toilet she’s discovered for her friend was a disgusting midden), it’s a portrait of a life on the sidelines.

Leanne Rowe steers Julie through the various short-term scenes Wood throws at her. But the evening’s pick-me-up is a splendid comic double from Mark Hadfield, first in drag as a long-serving manageress, then as hapless comedy-magician assistant Arthur. Raising laughs from Arthur’s inability to tell a joke, doing his one card-trick properly until the key moment, and sympathetically humorous even as the lights fade on him, Hadfield’s is the clearest talent on show.

Julie: Leanne Rowe.
Maureen: Suzie Toase.
George: Jeffrey Holland.
Arthur: Mark Hadfield.
Mel: Eugene O’Hare.
Compere: Mark Curry.

Director: Victoria Wood.
Designer/Costume: Roger Glossop.
Lighting: Paul Anderson.
Sound: David Ogilvy.
Musical Supervisor: Nigel Lilley.
Musical Director: Simon Beck.
Choreographer: Sammy Murray.
Wigs: Richard Mawbey.
Assistant director: Adam Lenson.

2009-09-25 11:42:47